BUILDING POWERFUL DELTOIDS
Building powerful deltoids is easy enough if you go about it the right way.
The delts are made up of the Anterior Deltoid in front of the shoulder, the Medial Deltoid in the centre of the shoulder, and the Posterior Deltoid at the back of the shoulder.
Not many doing shoulder exercises understand the importance of the medial delt. It’s the medial delt that does most of the lifting. It’s the medial delt that gives your shoulder that broad strong look but, 9 out of 10 end up shifting focus to the anterior delt although probably not intentionally. Problem is too much time is spent looking in the mirror when doing a shoulder exercise. They watch the anterior delt contracting, but the focus on the medial is lost and also, quite obviously, the posterior.
Similarly, and very little if any, focus is given to the posterior delt. It would seem because it can’t be seen it in the mirror it’s of no importance. As a consequence, looking side on, there is some anterior definition, some medial, but the posterior in some cases, is dead flat.
To get a true balance of muscle in the delts requires an equal amount of exercise for each of the delts. But it’s still the medial that should be the focus. The anterior and posterior delts will be taking some of the resistance anyway when doing a shoulder press.
A bar is the best for a shoulder press as it keeps an even balance of effort across the shoulders throughout the whole lift. Get your posture right by standing straight with your head in line with your back. A seated position takes too much of your energy because it shifts some of the focus to getting the posture correct. However seated is okay for high rep sets.
Keep your upper arms straight out to the side in line with your shoulder and, with your forearms pointing straight up push the bar up keeping your shoulders and arms hard back and in a straight line. This places the focus on the medial delts but certainly there will be some contraction in the anterior and the posterior. If your arms are forward of the line of the shoulders some of the effort will shift to the anterior delt with less on the medial delt and almost none on the posterior.
This is one of the reasons why a bunch of guys at gyms have more muscle in the anterior delt and none on the posterior.
There are of course, exercises more specifically for the anterior and posterior delts but, with correct posture and focus on the medial delt it’s still a good way to build up powerful, well proportioned shoulders. Practice will produce very good results.